


wrestle and rage

by hockeydyke



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Almost too much foreshadowing but ultimately a reasonable amount, Angst, Anxiety, Camping, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Relationships, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Miscommunication, Pining, Pre-Canon, Substance Abuse, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23692945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeydyke/pseuds/hockeydyke
Summary: “There were the 34 days in the summer of 2009, between winning the Memorial Cup and the NHL Entry Draft in Montreal, where things were perfect. Who wouldn’t want that back?”One week before the draft, Parse visits the Zimmermann family lake house with Jack and Bob, and he has everything going on with Jack under control because he has to. Things are fine.(They have to be. This is his last chance.)Written for Going Out with a Big Bang 2020.
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45
Collections: Going Out With A Big Bang 2020





	1. bob, the legend

**Author's Note:**

> Do you remember being 18? It’s hard to recall those memories now without tainting them with what happened after.
> 
> Warnings for internalized homophobia and biphobia, an unhealthy relationship, prescription drug abuse and canon-typical alcohol use, and a general slew of things that you don’t really notice are wrong until you’re a little older. Heed the tags. 
> 
> Written for Going Out With a Big Bang 2020, and accompanied with art by tangotangredi on Tumblr.
> 
> Fic title inspired by the song The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! by Sufjan Stevens.

Hockey isn’t kind to pairs.

For a sport where all the good old boys are obsessed with tradition and keeping things the same year after year, hockey is surprisingly rife with change. It might be the only part of the sport to which no one is immune: no matter how good you are, you never really know where you’ll be playing next year. Even Gretzky was traded, after all. 

But now, midway through June of what’s been the most idyllic summer of Parse’s life, he feels like he couldn’t be further from the loneliness of open ice. Everything is warm and pliant and alive, and he’s constantly surrounded by company, whether it’s the Zimmermanns or his Rimouski teammates or even reporters looking for a quote about next week’s draft. Parse isn’t picky. He’ll take all the attention he can get, thanks.

Everything would be completely perfect, actually, if only Jack would let Kent into his fucking truck.

“C’mon, Zimms,” Parse says as he lifts the front of his t-shirt to wipe a sheen of sweat from his temples. “Let me in. It’s pushing 90 out here. The hamburgers are gonna melt.”

It’s hard for him to believe that just ten minutes prior, they were chasing each other through the aisles of this Middle-Of-Nowhere, Quebec grocery store, both of them sweaty and smelling of bug spray and weed. They’d even made it to the checkout before Jack had caught sight of his own face staring down at them from the boxy old television set behind the counter playing goddamn Hockey Night in Canada.

Fucking Don Cherry.

Jack had sprinted out of the store before Parse could even say anything, and now he’s in the parking lot, curled up in the driver seat of his stupidly expensive Dodge Ram and Parse is standing outside the door with an armful of plastic grocery bags that feel like they’re about to melt into his skin.

“C’mon, Zimms,” Parse whines. “You don’t have to talk to me. Just let me into the goddamn car.”

Zimms doesn’t respond, so Parse leans his forehead against the side of the truck and closes his eyes for a few seconds. For once in his life he’s glad that he’s having a bad hair day, because he has a snapback on and it provides a buffer between his skin and the searing heat of the truck’s exterior.

When he opens his eyes again, Jack looks like a fucking corpse, eyes closed, skin pale, and completely motionless. Parse feels a hitch in his lungs. It’s hard to breathe for a second, but he clenches his hands into fists and wills himself to play cool. He can breathe. It’s just the humidity that’s making the air thick enough that it feels like glue in his lungs. Everything is fine.

He doesn’t think he can take another second of standing out here like a spectator as he watches Jack shake in the driver seat, gasping and panting and looking like there’s something really wrong with him. But Parse knows by now that this will pass within a few minutes, and Jack will act perfectly fine again, and then he’ll finally acknowledge Parse.

It’s an old routine by now. Parse steps back away from the door and busies himself with staring at the black screen of his phone and poking his toe through the hole in his sneaker. Sure enough, it only takes a few more minutes for Jack to slowly straighten up and glance outside at him.

The window squeaks as it rolls down and Jack grimaces at the sound, nose wrinkling and eyes shutting. Parse leans his elbows on the door and peers inside, eyes falling to where Jack’s hands rest on top of his thighs, fingers curled up tight and shaking. 

“Did you take your pills?” Parse asks the hands.

“Yeah,” Jack says, then swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Just waiting for them to kick in now.”

That’s a good thing, at least for right now. In a few minutes, Jack will be pliant and apologetic. He should be okay enough to drive them back to the cabin because he hasn’t had anything to drink yet today, and then they’ll hang out with Bob and grill dinner and it’ll be a nice night. Parse heads over to the passenger seat and hops inside, grateful for the cool air inside the vehicle even though it’s stale and smells like sweaty teenagers.

“Do you want—” Zimms says, jerking his head in the direction of the pill bottle sitting on the dashboard. He doesn’t even finish the sentence because Parse shakes his head at him, just like he always does. He hates when Jack offers. If even Jack Laurent Zimmermann notices how not chill Parse is these days, then that’s a fucking problem. 

They sit side by side for a moment. The radio is on and an announcer is speaking in Quebecois, too fast for Parse to understand more than every few words, so he darts his hand out and changes it to an English-language station. Jack tries to slap his hand away, and within seconds they’ve devolved into swatting at each other and giggling.

Parse ends up leaning halfway over the center console with his right hand on Jack’s shoulder and his left buried in the mess of dark hair at the nape of Jack’s neck. It’s getting longer there than Jack usually lets it grow, just now starting to curl and twist past his ears. He looks young like this. Parse forgets that Jack’s only eighteen, sometimes. He acts like he’s a lot older.

Parse wants to tell him that he’s going to miss hanging out with him every day, but the words die like a poison in his mouth, and he finds himself mute. Instead of saying it he cocks his head, pushes Jack’s bangs out of his face, and then says, “Zimms,” as if it’s a full sentence.

Jack smiles with half of his mouth, then glances up at the windshield. The parking lot is empty and a display of stacked paper towel rolls in the window of the grocery store blocks them from being in view of the checkout aisle. For a moment they’re alone; then another car turns off from the street into the small parking lot, and they pull away from each other and sit back in their seats, facing the windshield.

Jack turns his head a few miniscule degrees to look back at Parse. No—not at Parse’s eyes, but at his mouth. His pupils are blown wide. Parse likes to see the blue of Jack’s eyes, but it’s a rare treat. He knows that Jack doesn’t really like himself all that much when he’s sober.

It’s starting to seem like he might not like Parse, when he’s sober, either. Parse doesn’t really like to think about it all that much, but he supposes that he’d rather have a Jack that likes him than a sober Jack who doesn’t.

It’s selfish. Parse knows it is, but he doesn’t know how else to be. He licks his lips.

“Yeah,” Jack says, as if he’s answering a question, and shifts the clutch into drive.

\\_._/

Bob is still out fishing by the time they get back, so they have the cabin to themselves. 

It’s probably one of Parse’s favorite places, period. He’s never been completely comfortable in the Zimmermanns’ primary residence in Montreal, having always felt that it’s a little too big for three people, but the cabin on Lake Tremblant is different. He could tell from the first time he visited, during spring break his first year with Jack in the Q, that Bob had been the one to decorate it, with just a few framed photos of the family and some hunting prizes. It’s rustic, but not intentionally. Best of all, there’s only two bedrooms: a master and a smaller room with two twin beds, ostensibly for Jack and a friend.

Parse likes to think that he’s the first guest Jack has ever brought there, and he’d be the first to admit that he’s pretty damn smug about it, and about the fact that they have the perfect excuse for sharing a room. Parse fully intends to drag Jack there to give him a handy as soon as they get home, but Jack has other ideas. The screen door has barely slammed shut behind them when he pulls Parse down onto the living room couch and begins to kiss him.

It’s weird. That’s the only thing Parse can think about for a few seconds, even with Jack’s full weight on top of him and his tongue halfway down Parse’s throat. It’s weird because Parse is pretty sure he’s never done this sober before. Handjobs, yeah, and other stuff like that with guys in bars and back rooms and the occasional literal closet, because Parse will be the first to admit that he’s a living, walking fucking joke. But not kissing.

His thoughts won’t stop racing. He’s all too aware of Jack’s closed eyes and furrowed brow, and of his own open eyes that can’t seem to stop staring. Jack looks so fucking tense, which isn’t much of a surprise considering they didn’t even lock the door. This is risky, what they’re doing right now. It’s probably crossed over the line from risky into straight-up stupid.

And yet they’ve been doing this a lot more often, lately: messing around where one of Jack’s parents could walk in at any moment. It’s kind of funny, because for the entire past year, they’ve only fooled around when they were completely alone because Jack couldn’t get it up if he was freaking out about someone walking in on them. 

They have less reservations these days, or maybe they’re more desperate of it, now that they’re so close to the draft. Neither of them has said anything about it, but Parse is positive it’s one of the things that Jack’s been freaking out about, because Jack’s always kind of hated this entire  _ thing  _ they do together. Being the way that they are doesn’t bother Parse like it seems to bother Jack, which makes Parse feel weird in the pit of his stomach if he thinks too hard about it. Maybe he should feel guiltier about it. Maybe he’s cruel for not regretting as much as he should.

He tamps the thought down. Jack has been more open with everything lately, so maybe he feels less guilty now too, but that means that it’s also messier. It almost seems like Jack wants to be caught, and Parse can’t decide if that’s stupid or maybe the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to him.

As if he can tell what Parse is thinking about it, Jack bites his lip, and it hurts. Then the fucking bastard pulls away. Parse feels himself whine without meaning to, then opens his eyes and watches with a scowl as Jack fishes his phone out of the pocket of his shorts and squints at it. He must have felt it buzz.

“Uh,” Jack says, although it comes out more like a disdained  _ eugh. _ “My dad texted. He’s heading back here soon.”

“So?” Parse says, cocking his head. “We can make dinner after he gets here. He won’t be mad.”

“Are you joking?” Jack says. “He gave us one job. He’ll be pissed.”

“I think that getting groceries, making dinner,  _ and _ building the campfire is more than one job.”

“Kenny,” Jack says, and Parse rolls his eyes. It’s a lost cause at this point—if Jack is thinking about getting in trouble with one of his parents, then he’s already too worked up to do anything else fun.

“Fine, whatever. Can’t disappoint Bad Bob,” Parse says, then drops his voice, low and too mean to count as chirping. “Or, can’t disappoint him more than we already are.”

Jack’s cheeks flush pink, but he doesn’t say anything as they stand. Parse lets himself size him up for a moment. Jack is taller than he was when they first started hooking up. He’s taller than he was a few months ago, even, because Parse knows that Jack used to be the perfect height for Parse to rest his head on his shoulder, and now he can’t do it without straining his neck. The angle is just a little wrong. 

They meet each other’s eyes with mutual glares, then Parse shoves past Jack and heads outside to where the picnic table and grill are set up next to the fire pit out behind the cabin, on the side that faces the lake.

They get the burgers on the grill, and Parse tries and fails to get Jack to put on an apron he found in the kitchen so he can take a picture and put it on his Myspace. It’s a shame, because Parse has gotten a lot more friends on there lately and he’s pretty sure they’d enjoy it. He messes around on his phone for a few minutes while Jack tends the grill, occasionally sighing and sending pointed looks in Parse’s direction before he finally breaks down and clears his throat.

“Can you stop fucking around and get the fire started?” Jack asks, voice flat, but Parse knows him well enough to catch the tiniest flicker of a half smile that tells him Jack isn’t actually mad at him right now, not for real.

Parse can actually do that, so he stoops down and begins to construct a fire using the supplies that Bob keeps in a bin on the porch. He grew up out here in the country, so Parse isn’t surprised that he keeps around all the right supplies for this kind of thing. Parse is a little rusty, but he gets a small fire ablaze within ten minutes. When he stands up and brushes the dirt from his bare knees, he’s pleased to see Jack staring at him with an expression that he doesn’t recognize. He thinks that’s a good thing.

Then Jack turns away and busies himself with the plate of cooked burgers, so Parse lets it slide and steps over so he can punch Jack’s shoulder and jerk his head toward the fire. “This is fucking cute, right? It’s the full camp experience now.”

Jack grunts. Back to being pissy again.

“Did you ever go to summer camp?” Parse asks.

“I did hockey camp,” Jack says.

Yeah, no shit. Of course he did hockey camp. The Zimmermanns have probably spent more money on camps for Jack than Parse’s mom has made as a waitress in her entire adult life. “Did you stay in cabins and do canoeing and hiking and all that shit?”

“No, we played hockey.”

“Lame.”

They fall silent. Parse really—ugh. Parse really feels some type of way about Jack, but when he’s like this, he can be really fucking hard to talk to. He’s grateful when Bob appears around the bend a few minutes later, fishing pole slung over his shoulder and tackle box at his side, looking like a goddamn caricature of a dad. Parse watches him survey the grill and campfire, and then flash both of them with a wide smile as he gets close. That’s the main difference between him and Jack, appearance-wise: Bob is much, much toothier.

“Smells good, boys,” Bob says, once he’s in earshot. “Glad I assigned you dinner duty.”

Parse exaggerates a bow. “Thanks. We’re master chefs.”

<<He didn’t lift a finger the whole time,>> Jack says, scowling. He switches to Quebecois and talks quickly like this when he doesn’t want Parse to understand him, but Parse is used to straining his ears and thinking fast, so he catches it and elbows Jack in the ribs in response.

“Well, nice work on the fire, at least,” Bob says. “I hope you got marshmallows?”

“Who do you think I am?” Parse says, pulling them from one of the grocery bags on the table and tossing them at Bob, who catches them with ease. “Of course I did.”

The burgers finish cooling and they settle down in the folding camp chairs that Parse placed around the fire, with paper plates and plastic forks because none of them feel like doing dishes and Alicia isn’t around to call them lazy for doing it.

Parse sneaks a glance at Jack. His eyes are shifty, and he’s started to tap his fingers aggressively against the arm of his camp chair. The pills must be wearing off already. Maybe he only took one, but even so, that’s gotta be a new record.

“How were the fish today?” Parse asks, genuine, and Bob lets out a deep belly laugh like that’s the funniest thing in the world.

“It’s like they wanted to get caught. Claude and his family are going to eat well tonight,” Bob says, leaving his pole on the picnic table and assembling his burger. When he’s done he grabs a beer from the cooler under the picnic table and twists off the cap. He downs half of it in one go.

“I don’t get why we made burgers when you had fish,” Jack says.

“Because making dinner was a nice thing to do for your old man,” Bob says. “Anyway, you don’t like seafood.”

“I used to not like seafood. I don’t mind it anymore,” Jack says. “It’s decent protein.”

While they’ve been talking, Jack has carefully covered his burger patty with mustard and then reassembled it. Parse isn’t sure why, because he knows that Jack prefers his burgers plain. That might be why he’s now sitting sullenly in his camp chair and staring blankly at his plate like he’s unfamiliar with the concept of eating.

On his way back to the empty chair, Bob ruffles Jack’s hair. “You need a haircut, kiddo,” he says. “There’s a barbershop in Mont-Tremblant. I’ll call and schedule one for Sunday before we drive home. Best to give it the full week to grow out before the draft.”

Jack grunts, then drops his untouched burger back onto the greasy paper plate and stands quickly enough that his camp chair wobbles dangerously. Parse stares at the chair as its front two legs lift off the ground and hover in the air for half a second, a full second, before gravity plants them back in the soft dirt and thin grass.

<<I think I’m going to go to bed early,>> Jack says, or something approximating that in Quebecois because fuck Kent Parson, apparently.

Bob says something low and French under his breath that Parse doesn’t quite catch, and Jack flinches like he’s been dealt a blow. Then Bob leans over the arm of his own chair to knock open the latch of the cooler again with one scarred knuckle. He grunts a little as he stretches further so he can open the cooler and fish out another beer. 

“Okay,” Bob says. He jerks his arm downward to pry the bottle cap off on the arm of his own chair. “You go to bed.  _ Camme toé.  _ Kent and I will have a little guy time, eh?”

Parse looks back up. He does his best to mentally will Jack to make eye contact with him, but it evidently doesn’t work, because Jack continues to stare at his feet while he carries his plate over to the picnic table and drops it there, then heads inside. Parse feels like he’s missed a chance to say something. They only have a week left. He’s running out of time.

An ember deep inside of the campfire pops and part of the wooden tepee Parse had constructed earlier collapses, sending a spray of ashes tumbling to the edge of the firepit. 

“Did you hear back from your mom yet?” Bob asks. Both he and Alicia have been cautiously checking up on Parse all week about the status of Michelle Parson’s uncertain attendance at the draft, sprinkling in the occasional reminder that the Zimmermanns will, of course, sit next to him when his name is called no matter what.

“She finally got someone to cover both of her weekend shifts,” Parse says. This much is true. “So yeah, it’s looking like she’ll be able to make it.” That part, not so much. Parse loves his mom, knows she’s done a lot for him, but doesn’t expect much of her by way of showing up to stuff like this. It’s not her style.

“I’m glad,” Bob says. “It’s a big day. It’s good that she’ll be there.”

Bob rolls his shoulders, and his energy seems to change entirely as the movement rolls through his body. He stands up again with his beer in hand as he looks into the fire. A few ashes pop, noise falling in cadence with the grasshoppers and the frogs chirping quietly in the woods around them. After a minute, he steps around the fire and sits down in the chair that Jack abandoned next to Parse. Now that the buffer of the fire between them is gone, Parse can feel the muscles in his shoulders tighten like he’s about to take a shot. 

Parse knows that this is the last summer of his teenage years, that he’s about to truly be on his own for the first time as a real adult, but with Bob on his feet and standing over him, all Parse can think about how small he feels next to him.

“If there’s anything you need to tell me, you can just tell me, okay?” Bob says. He stoops down to offer Parse a beer, then straightens and looks back into the fire. “Alicia and I would prefer to know.”

Parse feels paralyzed. Can Bob see how flushed he is right now? His knees are too close to the fire and the heat feels severe enough to cause damage. He can feel the sleeves of his t-shirt sticking to his underarms. If he tells Bob about what’s been happening with the pills, Jack will never forgive him. He knows that much.

He glances up at Bob, who’s still waiting for an answer. Parse knows that he’s not Bob’s son, but sometimes he can’t help but think that they’re creepily fucking similar. They’re the opposite of Jack, who feels like he’s suffocating if he spends too much time with other people. Parse and Bob thrive off of it—they need it. It’s part of the reason they’ve always gotten along so well.

Thankfully, Parse also has something in common with Alicia: he’s a very good actor.

“There’s nothing,” Parse says, leaning back in his chair and flashing Bob an easy grin. “He’s just stressed.”

“Anything else?” Bob asks. He offers a smile, but Parse can’t help but think about how many of Bob’s teeth are fake. At least five, he thinks. He can’t tell which ones.

There’s an old video clip from the playoffs in ‘88 that Parse has seen hundreds of times, where a Bruins enforcer throws a punch that levels Bob so hard that he falls on his hands and knees and spits an incisor clean out of his mouth. Bob takes only a second to recover and get back up to his feet before swinging back with a right hook that knocks the other guy out cold. Parse doesn’t know what happened to the guy. That hit might have ended his career.

“We snuck an extra case of beer in the back of the truck,” Parse says. They’re both 18 already, but for all Bob makes a show out of preferring him and Jack to drink with real adult supervision around, he knows Bob won’t actually care. 

And he doesn’t. Bob chuckles and pats his shoulder, then rests his hand there for one, two, three seconds. It occurs to Parse that Bob’s thumb is close enough to his collarbone that Bob can probably feel his pulse racing. “You’re a good kid, Kent.”

Parse takes a swig of beer to hide his smile. Bob couldn’t be further from the truth. Does he even realize how much Parse has already corrupted his son? Jack’s a good person, really. He’s had girlfriends before. He could’ve been normal if Parse had never come along.

Never meet your heroes, they say. You’ll ruin them.


	2. jack, the legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for prescription drug abuse, an amount of internalized homophobia that seems excessive but is honestly pretty relatable, and binge drinking.

Parse’s parents were young.

He wakes up from a dream about them the next morning, Saturday, and is irked about leaving that foggy reverie as he slowly blinks his eyes open to the wooden walls and floors of the cabin, lit brightly in the morning sun. The bedroom door is cracked open, and Bob and Jack’s matching voices drift through, heated and French. Parse can’t make out the words, let alone translate them this soon after waking up.

He wracks his brain to try to figure out what he’d been dreaming about just seconds before, and it starts to come back to him in pieces. It’s one that he’s dreamt countless times before, often enough that it now feels less like the memory it once was and more like distantly watching an old home video of someone else’s family. It starts in church—an Easter mass, because Parse is small and his mother is young and wearing a pastel sundress, and his dad is with them. His dad throws Parse up onto his shoulders, and Parse feels safe up there, feeling the vibrations as he talks to his wife. He can never understand what they’re saying, but it sounds nice. 

Muffled Quebec French from the other room distracts him again, and he sits up in bed and stretches. He’s sure Jack went out for a run earlier this morning, but Parse actually understands what a rest day is, so he’s going to take it easy. 

Maybe it’s not a real memory after all. Parse can’t remember a time when both his parents were around for Easter. It could just be something he made up. He thinks about families a lot, and about how things could have been with his, so he wouldn’t put it past his overactive imagination to make it up.

The sound of Jack huffing and listing things that are stressing him out accompanies him as he rolls out of bed and pads into the adjoining bathroom, stifling a yawn as he goes. 

He flicks on the light and sticks out his tongue at his reflection in the mirror, then lets his face fall for a second as he steps closer. For a second, he could have sworn he looked just like his dad, but when he lets his face fall into a neutral expression, he looks the same as always.

When Parse was young enough that he still needed help lacing his skates, he used to entertain the thought that he might have been adopted, or at least that he was the byproduct of some illicit affair his mother had with a mysterious stranger. That way he could pretend that his real dad would some day learn about his existence and come whisk him away from Bethany, New York, population 1700 and shrinking.

But the fantasy didn’t last. He hasn’t thought about it in years, actually. The older Parse gets, the clearer it’s become that he is undoubtedly his father’s son. He had the same rakish smile, the same inscrutable hazel eyes, and the same unstoppable drive to throw himself, like a moth to a flame, at the very thing that would kill him if it had a clean shot.

<<You need to man up and get over whatever this is,>> Bob is saying, and Parse can hear from his tone that he’s clenching his teeth. He can see in his mind, crystal clear, how Bob must be rubbing at the crows feet at his temples, the way he always does when he’s getting frustrated with Jack.

Parse splashes his face with cold water from the sink, gets his toothbrush ready, and looks around. Jack’s small black toiletry bag, the one Parse has seen on the counters of countless hotel bathrooms, is perched on the back of the toilet. The zipper is open a few inches and it’s just enough for Parse to see the unassuming orange pill bottle tucked inside.

He lets go of his toothbrush for a moment, and it hangs slack from his mouth while he squints at the bottle. _Take one daily with food_ , the label says, in Quebecois first and again in English. Jack does neither of those things. From the other room he can hear the dull thud of something being thrown, or more likely dropped with force. He thinks about flushing all of the pills down the toilet. He reaches for the bottle.

<<I’m sorry I’m not as good as him,>> Jack is saying, when Parse’s pulse slows down enough that he can pay attention to their argument again. His voice has cracked, and Parse can tell he’s almost on the verge of tears.

Parse drops the bottle back into the bag quickly. He can’t do that to Jack. It’s not worth the consequences, and anyway, he’d just phone his doctor and get the prescription refilled.

Whatever Bob answers, he does it too quietly for Parse to hear, so he spits out his mouthful of toothpaste and holds his hand under the faucet until he’s cupped enough water to rinse his mouth with. On autopilot, he starts the process of wetting his hair and gelling down the cowlicks while straining his ears to hear more.

From the other room, Bob chuckles. Parse lifts his head to look in the mirror again and practices smiling while he styles his hair, first with teeth, then without. Everybody’s going to be looking at him when his name is called on Friday. He’s going to need to look happier than he’s ever looked as he walks up to the stage to get his jersey. 

<<Excuse you?>> Bob bellows. It’s loud enough that the mirror shakes.

Here’s what Bob taught Parse: how to make the camera love him, how to tie a tie, how to shave (not that he really needs it, but he’s positive his beard will start coming in any day now), and how to throw a punch. Bob even gave Parse a hand-me-down wristwatch that he didn’t want anymore, and after that Jack wouldn’t talk to either of them for a week. 

It was stupid. Bob has dozens of watches, all probably worth more than the old sedan Parse’s mom has been driving since before he was born—but it’s not like they mean anything to him. And Jack doesn’t even like shiny things the same way that Parse does.

Parse winks at the mirror. It’s a move that, unfortunately, has been working on girls lately. He finishes smoothing out the worst cowlick. He likes to think his dad was brave, before the injury and the depression and everything that ended up happening to him. He was the one to teach Parse how to play hockey, after all. That counts for something.

<<I hate you,>> Jack is shouting.

Parse just thinks that if he were in Jack’s place, he’d be pretty fucking grateful for his parents.

<<Fine. I’m going to spend the day with some friends in town.>> Bob’s voice has dropped low enough that Parse has to strain his ears. That could mean anyone from old teammates to whichever locals Bob finds roaming around this time of day. He has the kind of personality to make buddies wherever he goes, and the NHL fame doesn’t hurt either. He could walk into any town in the province and find someone to buy him a beer within ten minutes. No one says no to Bad Bob. <<Stay out of trouble,>> he says, and then the front door slams.

Parse, who is positive that he’s the definition of trouble, waits for the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut as well before he steps back into the room. Jack is already face down on the bed and shaking, but on the bright side, Parse can’t hear the tell-tale raspy breathing of a panic attack. There’s still hope for their day plans.

“Hey,” he says, then stoops to pick up a tennis ball that has rolled out of his duffel bag and onto the floor. He gets fidgety a lot, and throwing the ball around is better than most of the other annoying things he does when he gets antsy. “I was gonna grab some breakfast and then I was thinking we could head out on the trail for a hike.”

Jack grunts in response. When he sits up, his expression is blank and his jaw is clenched tight. Great, Parse thinks. Jack’s gonna be stuck in robot mode all day if he doesn’t fix things quickly.

 _“Enweille,”_ Parse says. _C’mon._ “We should get out there before it gets too hot.”

“I already went on a run this morning,” Jack says.

“This isn’t training. It’s just for fun,” Parse says. “You promised you’d do a hike with me.”

“I changed my mind.”

Parse tosses the tennis ball high enough that it almost reaches the ceiling, then catches it. “We can go swimming to cool off afterward.”

“Not interested.” Jack stands up, rubs at his eyes so Parse can’t see if they’re red or not, and heads into the bathroom. Parse hears him shake the pill bottle, and then the faucet running.

When Jack steps back into the bedroom, Parse chucks the ball at Jack’s shoulder. He yelps and rubs where it hit before launching himself at Parse. They wrestle for a minute before Jack gets the upper hand and pins Parse down on his bed, chest heaving, hair ruined, and vibrating with adrenaline.

“I’ll suck your dick if you come with me,” Parse says, sing-song and teasing, but quiet enough that Bob wouldn’t be able to overhear if he, God forbid, came back into the cabin while they weren’t paying attention.

 _“Tabarnak,”_ Jack says, and Parse hopes he’s not imagining the way his voice goes soft when he says it. “I’ll come if it makes you shut up.”

“Whatever you want,” Parse says. “Let’s go.”

\\_._/

The first half an hour of their hike is an exercise in self-torture. Or it is for Parse, at least. Jack takes off down the trail like he’s on a mission, and Parse is left following five feet behind with an excellent view of Jack’s ass. This on its own might be okay—Parse trains with Jack almost every day, so he’s used to seeing him in sweaty athletic clothes—but the gym shorts he’s wearing today are particularly small on him, which is just unfair. They must be a pre-growth spurt relic that Alicia hasn’t managed to snatch from Jack’s clothing rotation yet. It’s unfair.

But once their pace is set, Parse gets into the groove of it and lets his mind drift as he looks at the trees and plants and tries to identify them in his head. Hiking is relaxing for him.

Parse had been in Boy Scouts once, before his dad went overseas on his third tour and came back too shell-shocked to remember that he had a son, let alone drive him to extracurriculars. But for the few months he’d been a member of his pack, he learned knot tying, the basics of fire building, and what shame felt like.

The last part is kinda funny, honestly. Parse can’t think of a single guy he’s ever hooked up with who’d describe him as anything other than _shameless_ , but it’s true. It only took a few times getting caught staring at one of the older boys before he'd learned that there was something wrong with him.

But now, as good as it feels to be out on the trail, the way that Parse is following Jack at his heels reminds him of how much he has to be embarrassed about. Parse thinks they’d hang out less often if Parse didn’t follow Jack around like an annoying puppy. He wishes he could stop, but he’s always been prone to acting like this, just latching onto someone and not leaving them alone. He’s actually kind of quiet around strangers sometimes, but with Jack, he can’t seem to fucking shut up. 

After an hour Jack freezes in the middle of the trail without warning, and Parse walks directly into him, which has the overall effect of a tricycle hitting a semi truck. Jack doesn’t even flinch—just glances back at Parse, gives him a friendly shove, and shrugs his drawstring bag off from his shoulders. 

“Water break,” he says, stepping aside Parse to find somewhere to sit at the side of the path. He’s just as out of breath as Parse is—they’ve been walking too fast, pushing each along to their limits, as usual.

Parse gets his own water bottle out and takes a few gulps before he looks back up at Jack, who has sat down on top of a fallen tree and is scowling down at his prescription bottle. This is the third time Parse has seen him take it out today. Maybe they stopped working, and now Jack’s doctor will have to up the dose again. Parse asked his mom about it once, if it was okay that Jack kept taking more, but she’d told him to knock it off and mind his own business. Coach had said the same thing when he’d brought it up during playoffs this year. After all, it doesn’t affect how Jack plays, so it must be fine.

But it still seems like it’s getting worse. Parse loves Jack, but—

Shit. He does not. Jesus fucking Christ, he does not. Hooking up is one thing, and training together all the time is another, but whatever thought he just had can’t be real.

And yet. 

Parse closes the distance between them and stands in front of the fallen tree until Jack looks up at him. The tree cover overhead is thick, but not thick enough that no sunlight permeates through. Where Jack is sitting right now, his entire face is lit up in sunlight, bright except for the dark circles under his eyes. He’s the hottest person Parse has ever seen. He looks sick. How can he be both? That’s the paradox here, with Jack. The highs are the highest Parse has ever felt, but when they hit a low, it’s just as extreme. 

“Hey, Zimms.”

“What?” 

People like them don’t get to stay together and play hockey. If they’re lucky, they can have one of those things. They have to choose, and right now, this is all Parse can give.

“Let’s just stay here,” Parse says. “At the cabin. Fuck the draft.”

They’re three, maybe four feet away from each other, and now Jack stands. He looks sullen, shoulders rounded in an uncomfortable hunch, and he’s already completely sweated through his t-shirt. He might not, now that Parse is looking closer, be up to going for a swim after this. He’s sweaty and shaky, and Parse can see he’s in pain from the way that his muscles move just under his skin, tense and constantly rippling in uneasy stammers. His lower lip is red and raw where he’s been nervously chewing it.

The knot of Jack’s Adam’s apple moves. For a moment, Parse lets himself believe that Jack is about to say yes. It’s another fantasy he’s willing to fall for.

“You’re being crazy,” Jack says. Parse knows that it’s one of his harshest insults, but he’s heard plenty worse, so it doesn’t hit him as hard as the fact that Jack didn’t even take the time to truly consider the offer and what it means.

“Dude, I know you’ve been freaking out all the time lately,” Parse says. “I don’t know what the fuck else to do. I don’t know how to make you happy.”

“You can’t,” Jack says.

The woods around them, previously alive with the sounds of birds and animals, have gone quiet.

“Then maybe you’re the problem!” Parse says—maybe shouts. He’s so furious, so hurt, that he can’t even look at Jack right now. “You have everything. So what if you go second? Second choice isn’t that bad.”

“That’s not true. You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“I don’t understand what, exactly? Christ, Zimms,” Parse ducks his head, spits, scowls at the ground. “I’m the _only_ other person who understands what it’s like. I do get it. And I know your dad’s gonna be happy for you either way.”

“Oh, _Crisse_ ,” Jack says. His pupils have dilated again, either from anger or his medication, and in the dappled sunlight like this, they’re impossible for Parse to look away from. “Of course you’re thinking about my dad right now.”

“Don’t,” Parse says. This is off-limits. It always has been.

“You don’t want him to find out how obsessed you are with him, eh?” Jack says, and he looks half-crazy himself like this, with wisps of hair pasted to his gaunt face with sweat. “You just want things to stay the same so you can keep leeching off my family.”

“At least I appreciate them,” Parse says. 

“Appreciate,” Jack repeats, then scoffs. “Annoy them, more like. We just want you to leave us alone.” 

Parse wonders how hard it would be to hurt Jack, and then he tries to tamp down the thought just as fast. Jesus Christ, he’s bad. He’s a bad fucking person. He needs to get away as soon as possible.

“Maybe I fucking will,” he says, and turns on his heels and heads down the trail as fast as he can walk without running. Behind him he can hear Jack’s breath hitch, but he doesn’t turn around. He has his pills with him, so he doesn’t need second-place Kent Parson to help him through this.

After a few minutes of walking, Parse has cooled down somewhat, but he stands by what he said. He still thinks that he’ll be incredibly happy with getting drafted second. After all, there was a time when Parse wasn’t even sure if he was going to be able to play in the Q, let alone make it this far. He’ll happily go second to the Habs and stay in Montreal, where he can visit the Zimmermanns every week if they’ll have him, or at least hang out with buddies from the Q if they won’t. Vegas might be cool, but Parse doesn’t know anybody on that entire half of the continent and that’s okay. 

Playing for Montreal will be good, he thinks, and maybe in a few years once one of them is a free agent, they can negotiate something and they’ll play together again. Parse can wait. It’s not like he’s ever going to get another chance, with someone other than Jack. 

Anyway, he likes the snow. Vegas wouldn’t be a good fit at all. Maybe Jack doesn’t see it now, but everything can work out eventually. Stupid stubborn bastard.

Parse takes the next fork in the trail that he finds. He hopes he gets lost and hurt and Jack has to come and find him. No, he doesn’t. He’s just being ridiculous again. He’s always ridiculous. No wonder Jack doesn’t want to commit to anything with him right now. There’s another option where he leaves Parse behind after the draft and heads to Vegas and never talks to him again, and that option looks pretty good for Jack, too.

Jack is normal, Parse reminds himself. No matter what happens at the draft, Jack can be fine. Eventually, he will be.

\\_._/

Parse doesn’t see Jack or Bob again until after the sun sets, dipping low behind the lake and leaving it pink-tinged and shining as the night cools around it. Parse watches from the porch, then heads inside and lays face-down on the hard twin mattress until he hears a creak and looks up to see Jack standing in the doorway.

“My dad just went to bed,” Jack says. “Do you want to get drunk?” 

Yeah, Parse does. No shit. Jesus Christ, he’s never wanted to be wasted this badly. He nods and hopes he doesn’t look like a starving man who’s just been offered a three-course meal, but that’s definitely how he feels right now.

They pull out the case of Labatt that they hid under a towel in the bed of Jack’s truck and place it between them, sitting in big, wooden Adirondack chairs on the porch and watching the dark sky above the lake in front of them. 

By the time they’ve finished their third round of beers, Parse is thinking about straddling Jack’s lap and sitting there for a while, but he’s still wary about making a move before they’ve both fully had their time to mope. Best case scenario, Jack notices that he’s upset and comes over to him instead. 

It doesn’t happen, but after his seventh beer, Jack is slumped into his chair, head lolling, when he speaks to Parse again. “We should drive out here for your birthday,” he says. “This would be a good spot to watch fireworks.” 

“Yeah?” Parse says. He looks back out at the sky, and then at its reflection in the black water. “You know it’s on the fourth, right? The fireworks here will be a few days too early.”

“Well, we can come for the whole week, then,” Jack says, and lifts his hand to bump fists with Parse, but then leaves his hand there, skin to skin.

“Okay, Zimms,” Parse says. Slowly, he twists his hand and cups it below Jack’s own. If he reached out another inch, their fingers would interlock. It’s almost like they’re holding hands. “That’d be great.”

He falls asleep there, feeling safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack is kind of a dick at this point in his life. He's going through some shit. Again, being 18 can be hard.


	3. parse, the boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter.

Parse wakes up to the abrupt feeling of a finger poking his cheek. 

“Hey,” Jack says, standing in front of Kent on the porch, strangely breathless. For a moment Parse entertains the idea that he’s just come back from a middle-of-the-night jog, but then he realizes that Jack’s just high, or drunk, or some mix of the two.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Zimms, what d’you want?” Parse manages to mumble. His head is spinning. Whatever minimal amount of sleep he’s gotten hasn’t done anything to metabolize the booze. He sits up, joints stiff from how he’s been curled up in the wooden chair, and glances across the porch at the cardboard beer case, now empty and collapsed into itself.

“Let’s go swimming now,” Jack says. “It’s still warm.”

Parse rubs at his eyes, then squints at Jack again. There’s a bite to the air, and a weak breeze drifting up off the water that makes the hair on Parse’s arms stand up on end. But he understands what Jack means—his blood is thick and warm with the buzz he’s still feeling. He could use a quick swim, and then maybe a piss and his bed, in that order.

“Yeah, okay. Relax. I’m coming,” Parse says, and manages to stand and stay upright for all of a second before he starts to sway.

Jack catches him and pats his arm. When Parse meets his eyes, Jack’s hair is mussed and his cheeks flushed, eyes wide and goofy. He looks like he actually wants to be here, in this moment, with Parse. It’s like he’s a different person, sometimes.

 _Are you sure you feel up to swimming right now?_ Parse means to ask. Instead, he just grabs the front of Jack’s t-shirt and pulls him down for a messy kiss that tastes like stale Labatt Blue. Jack kisses back with too much tongue, then yanks Parse forward and sends him tumbling down the steps of the porch, barely managing to land on his feet at the bottom.

“Oops,” says Jack, and lets Parse shove him in retaliation. They wrestle for a moment, then abandon their scuffle just as fast and head down the path, Jack with one arm around Parse’s shoulders. They walk out to the end of the dock, some twenty feet long, and sit down there with their bare feet hanging over the water for a few minutes in silence. Parse leans his head on Jack’s shoulder and for once, Jack doesn’t shove him away. It’s kind of nice.

“How deep is it?” Jack asks, voice high and tight. He isn’t particularly big on swimming, usually. Parse remembers that he got a special doctor’s note and missed the entire month they did swimming in gym class in Grade 11. For an athlete, Jack missed a lot of gym class in high school—but that always made sense to Parse, because he knows Jack doesn’t like the changing clothes in front of so many people that aren’t his regular teammates. Parse understands that. Locker rooms can be dangerous when you’re hiding something.

“I dunno,” he says. “Probably not that deep. Do you think it’s cold?”

Jack tries to dip one toe low enough to test the water, but the dock is high enough from the surface that he’s a few inches away, so he shrugs. “It might be.”

Parse stands back up and stretches, letting his shoulders pop because he knows that Jack hates the sound. “Let’s just jump in on three.”

Jack stands as well. “Okay, but you better actually jump.”

“Pinky swear,” Parse says, and they do so quickly and clumsily, then line up on the edge, toes hanging off the weathered wood. It’s colder right here, exposed to the wind, and Parse shivers in spite of himself. 

“One,” Jack says, pauses, and then takes a breath. “Two.”

Then Parse throws his entire weight into pushing Jack off the dock, but follows him into the water less than a second later. Of course he follows. He couldn’t stop if he tried.

Underwater is dark and different, silent and desperate.

Parse is a good swimmer because it was a cheap way to stay in shape in the summer when he couldn’t get ice time in, and there was a little pond out back behind his mom’s house that wasn’t too bad if he kept his eyes shut underwater. He spent countless hours swimming back and forth, alternating strokes. He’s got decently broad shoulders for his size, and he’s pretty good.

Even so, he briefly panics when he hits the water and starts sinking, because something about entering the water when he’s this wasted is so startling that he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing for a brief moment. It’s hard enough to begin pumping his arms and kicking his legs that he’s distracted enough to forget that Jack always gets much, much drunker than him. He always has—it’s something to do with his pills. 

Parse should have known better. It makes him feel some special kind of awful every time Jack gets more handsy than usual after a couple rounds of jungle juice—like he has to be completely out of his right mind to tolerate Parse being close. And the limit on how drunk he gets has only gotten higher lately. Parse has never seen anyone as drunk as Jack can get these days. It’s kind of scary.

Parse kicks his legs again and breaks through to the surface, water pouring over his head and into his eyes, then his mouth. He coughs and sputters and brings one hand up to wipe his eyes, and when he does, he finds that Jack hasn’t surfaced at all. He bobs up and then goes back under and opens his eyes against the cold water to see nothing but darkness. 

For an excruciating minute Parse feels like he’s having a goddamn heart attack, and then Jack finally emerges, some five feet away.

When he does, only his eyes breach the surface and when they lock with Parse’s own, he can see the moment that Jack starts to panic. He begins to tread faster and opens his mouth, but no words come out, and more water sloshes into his throat. He gags.

Parse reaches out to him but freezes there as a wave pushes him back a few feet. “Jack!” he shouts, then coughs on a mouthful of cold, gritty lake water. He spits it out and tries again. “Zimms, you’re okay, I’m coming,” he says, then coughs again, slipping back under as he’s momentarily distracted from the flow of treading water.

Jack dips under again. When he comes up he’s coughing too, but his is wet and muffled, and Parse can see that his face is already turning red with the effort of gasping in more air. He slips under again.

“Zimms!” Parse shouts. He’s shocked at how hoarse his voice already feels. He squints down at the pitch black water, but he can’t make out the shape of Jack’s body below the surface. 

When he does finally see movement, it’s not below the surface after all, but the reflection of movement on the dock several feet above them. Parse whips around to see Bob on the edge in his bathrobe and pajama pants, looking weary and startled and older than usual in the dim moonlight. Parse reaches out an arm to him in spite of himself, but Bob looks past him.

“Jack!” Bob bellows, louder than Parse had managed, as he scans the surface of the water. For a few seconds the surface is still and dark enough that it looks like he’s simply looking at his own reflection.

Then Jack bobs up to the surface again, and Bob throws himself into the water. He clutches the spindly ladder at the end of the dock with one hand and uses the other to reach until Jack meets him halfway, and then he hauls Jack toward him, grunting and straining until he’s at the ladder. Then Bob begins to climb, lifting Jack with him as he sputters and coughs.

Bob deposits Jack on the surface of the dock and hits his back once, twice, three times with a closed fist until Jack gags and heaves lake water and partially-digested beer all over the wooden surface and on himself. 

Parse watches this from below, legs kicking, arms getting tired. Just as he begins to sink lower, Bob leans back over the side and reaches out a hand. Parse lets Bob pull him to the ladder, then lets go of him to climb. He falls to his hands and knees once he’s on the dock, coughing so hard that he can’t get any air in until his vision goes fuzzy. 

When he finally gasps down enough air that he can see again, Bob is standing over him. <<What the hell were you thinking?>> he asks, shaking Parse by the shoulders. 

<<We weren’t thinking,>> Parse says, stuttering through the words, accent thick. <<We’re both drunk. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.>>

<<You could have killed him,>> Bob growls, and Parse ducks his head, ashamed, because Bob is right. It would have been Parse’s fault.

Out of the corner of his eye, Parse watches Bob pick Jack up in his arms as if he’s a young child and not a full-grown adult. He stands up, and Parse can see that his knees almost buckle with the effort—especially the left one, the one that ended his career when it blew out in the 90s. When he steadies his stance, he turns back and heads to shore with Jack in his arms.

Parse collapses on his back on the dock and stares up at the stars while his chest heaves. Bob is lucky that he can still, at age 50, lift his son up and carry him. Gasping, shaking, and completely alone on the damp wood, Parse thinks that there’s something real sweet about that. 

Neither Bob nor Jack looks back before they reach the cabin. For a moment Parse is invisible, but he still feels relieved. The worst is over. Jack is okay, and he’ll be there in a few minutes when Parse finishes shivering hard enough that he can’t even fucking stand, and he’ll follow them inside, and that’s all that matters. 

Jack will be there, and that’s a goddamn relief, because Parse doesn’t get another chance after him. It’ll be too risky to try to pick up anyone new or meet other guys after he’s drafted. People will recognize his face, know who he is. The stakes get higher after Friday.

This is all Parse gets. He’s never letting it go. 

When the light in the cabin turns off, Parse finally gets up and heads back to the cabin, dripping a trail of lake water in the dirt as he goes. He strips off his t-shirt and gym shorts and leaves them draped over the wooden porch railing to dry, then carefully stomps off the dirt from his feet onto the welcome mat and goes inside, where he walks along the edges of the hallway to avoid the creaky floorboard at the center. By the time he enters the bedroom Jack is already asleep, or doing a good job faking it.

“Zimms?” Parse asks, voice a whisper, just to check. Jack doesn't answer.

For a long time, Parse doesn’t sleep. Instead he lies in bed with his eyes closed, shivering, and listening to the almost imperceptible sound of Jack breathing.

\\_._/

Things feel a little bit different the next morning, but not in a bad way—they’re weird in a way that seems that the worst of it is over. Jack’s alarm goes off at eight, and they go for a run along the shore of the lake. It’s part of training. It’s what they always do. Parse’s arms ache as he pumps them and he knows that they’re sore from his frantic efforts to stay afloat in the cold water last night, but it’s a good pain. It’s the kind of pain that makes you better.

Parse is glad to be going back to thinking about hockey almost every hour of the day. When you scrape everything else away, what is there left? Hockey. It’s always been about hockey, and they can keep it that way. They’ll let Bob drive back to Montreal, and Parse and Jack will sit in the backseat, each with one earbud connected to Jack’s iPod and bobbing their heads while they silently pass a notepad back and forth and sketch out plays. It’ll be fine.

When Parse and Jack meet Bob in the kitchen for breakfast after their run, none of them say anything about what happened last night. Parse understands, without having been told, that they will not be telling Alicia about this.

After they make omelettes, Jack and Bob head into town for Jack’s haircut and to fill up the gas tank of Jack’s truck. When they come back, Jack’s wispy boy-band curls are gone, and he’s clutching a newspaper. Bob pries it out of his hands and drops it onto Parse’s lap. It’s _The Gazette._ Parse looks pale in the photo they chose, of him and Jack with the Memorial Cup last month. He hadn’t slept for about seventy hours leading up to that final game. Next to him, Jack is grinning wider than Parse has ever seen, which means that he wasn’t sober.

“Congratulations, boys,” Bob says. “You made the front page.”

“This is so cool,” Parse says. He’s gotten his picture in his home county’s tiny newspaper twice, the first time when his high school’s hockey team had made sectionals when he played varsity as an eighth grader; the second when he’d been drafted into the QMJHL. But _The Gazette_ is something completely different. Every hockey fan on the continent will know him now.

He can almost appreciate the irony, really, that his career is just getting started, but is already making him feel like he’s going to suffocate. He grips the paper tight and stares at his name in the headline while Jack looks at it from behind his shoulder, then grunts.

“I’m going to go sit for a minute,” Jack says, and turns on his heels and heads on down the path to the lake before Parse can do anything to stop him. 

The sun is high in the sky, and the reflection of the light off the water is so bright that Parse has to lift his hand over his eyes to squint through the glare as Jack walks away. He hesitates for a few seconds when he reaches the dock, and when finally he steps onto it cautiously, Parse hurries after him and sits down nearby on the edge and opens the newspaper. While he reads through the article Jack is silent, tracing his finger along the edge of the wood.

Parse puts down the paper. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. He tries to flash Jack a smile, but Jack is too distracted with furrowing his brow at the paper that he doesn’t see. “Like, no matter what happens, I’m still going to text you every day. You’d have to block my number to stop me.”

Jack is quiet for a few seconds, and then he looks up and away, across the water. The dark circles under his eyes look like bruises. “As if that would stop you,” he finally says.

“It wouldn’t,” Parse says. “C’mon. I found a deck of cards while you guys were out. I bet we can win something stupid from your dad if we make him play us.”

Jack pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He looks especially young when he does it. “Go away, Kenny. I want to be alone”

“Whatever.” Parse waits a second but Jack doesn’t take it back, so he stands. “I’m gonna go pack.”

He spends the next half hour in the bedroom, sitting down on the floor with his back against the bed frame, rolling his tennis ball and texting stupid shit to his old teammates. He receives a picture of a cat that he sets as the new background of his Nokia, and then a text from his mom saying that she might not be able to make it on Friday.

Before he can respond, he sees motion in the doorway and looks up. Jack is standing there, quiet and looming, hands tucked in the pocket of his shorts.

“I rolled a joint,” Jack says, and holds it out to show Parse. The action reminds Parse of how the barn cats back home would drag bird corpses onto the welcome mat to show them off, and something about that makes Parse smile. He stops trying to yank the broken zipper on his duffel bag back into place, and when he stands and steps over to squeeze past where Jack’s standing in the doorway, he can’t help but stare for a moment at the curve of Jack’s shoulder where his head doesn’t quite fit.

“Take a picture and it’ll last longer,” Jack says, the delivery only slightly off. He can be funny sometimes, but it’s on his own time, quiet, chirping, and understated. He’s such a dork. 

Parse heads to the front of the cabin, then stops and waits for Jack to follow him. Jack rummages through the kitchen junk drawer until he finds a lighter, and then they leave together through the back door and head down the dirt path to the lake. The sun is high in the sky, but there’s enough of a breeze coming off of the water that Parse feels comfortable and warm. Last night already feels so far away.

“Weather’s supposed to be good for the entire week,” Jack says once they’ve rounded the corner and are no longer in view of the cabin, then lights the joint. It’s thin and not rolled tightly enough, but somehow it stays together in his shaking hands, pinched between fingernails with jagged edges from how often Jack’s been biting them. When he catches Parse staring, he offers him a cautious, tight-lipped smile.

That means that things will be fine. They fight, and then they make up. Jack always lets him back in eventually. It’s like he always says: it’s just about hockey. It’ll stay that way even though they’re hurtling toward something nebulous and unknown that won’t make sense until Friday when their names are called and they walk up on stage. But right now it’s fine. Right now it’s just Jack and Parse, Zimms and Kenny, walking close enough side by side that their knuckles brush whenever they pass the joint. When they finish it, Jack flicks it into the sand at the edge of the water and buries it with the toe of his sneaker.

Without warning, Jack tackles Parse, fully bodying him from shoulder to hip. It’s the kind of thing they do daily and it wouldn’t usually throw off Parse’s balance this badly, but he sees it coming just a moment too late and the force drives him back-first into the tight-packed dirt of the path.

For a moment, the wind is knocked cleanly out of Parse’s chest. He opens his mouth but his lungs won’t contract, can’t contract, and his vision goes blurry as he waits for his body to return to his control. There’s something about that fall, though, that reminds him of a particularly nasty check. The moment before contact seems to last forever, and although he can’t form the words to make a sound, he wants nothing more than to scream.

He can’t, but after a few seconds, the air comes rushing back into his chest and he gasps while Jack crouches down and furrows his brow.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says. He is. When he’s a little stoned like this he forgets his own strength; forgets he’s gotten bigger than Parse in a way that means he can do real damage.

Parse knows he means it, but he still can’t make his voice work. He holds up a finger and nods instead. _It’s okay, just gimme a second_ , he means to say. When he takes stock of his body, he finds that his palms are scraped, and that he must have bit his tongue when he made contact with the ground.

“You good?” Jack asks, voice low, as if he’s asking something that the animals and plants around them shouldn’t hear. Behind his dilated pupils, his eyes are so fucking blue. Parse isn’t sure what good thing he did to deserve meeting someone else like this. It must have been some kind of mistake on the universe’s part, or else his luck is fucking amazing. 

He nods, and then after a moment passes and Jack still hasn’t looked away, says “You better stop doing that. You’re really gonna hurt me one of these times.”

Jack flinches, and Parse smiles.

He likes the taste of blood on his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments, and don't forget to check out tangotangredi's art here.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment to tell me what you're thinking!
> 
> [Find me on Tumblr here.](https://hockeydyke.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And check out this link to see tangotagredi's art.


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